


One Second Chance

by HighlyOpinionatedNerd



Category: Bleach
Genre: Hope you like it!, Time Travel, contains OC antagonist, some tagging clarifications:, the author refers to characters by their first names with reckless abandon, the major character that dies is subsequently brought back (re: time travel), there will be violence! I'm just not sure it warrants the 'graphic' tag, there's a happy ending i promise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-08
Updated: 2019-10-06
Packaged: 2020-10-12 05:54:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,548
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20559317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HighlyOpinionatedNerd/pseuds/HighlyOpinionatedNerd
Summary: After a fight with a hollow that goes horribly, horribly wrong, Ichigo vows to do everything in his power to save his town and protect the people closest to him.Whatever it takes.





	1. The Calm Before the Storm

Ichigo was woken, quite suddenly, in the middle of the night, by the phone on his bedside table ringing.

He groaned softly and scrunched his eyes shut tight, briefly considering ignoring the call and just going back to sleep. But the thought that it might be something important that couldn’t wait until morning urged him up, squinting and fumbling in the dark, to answer.

“Hello…?”

“Hey, Kurosaki, this is Akon from the research and development division in Soul Society. You got a second?”

“Yeah…”

“Mm? Everything ok over there?”

“It’s four o’clock in the morning,” Ichigo grumbled.

“Oh, is it? Whoops. Sorry for the inconvenience.”

“‘S fine. What do you want?”

“Just figured I’d let you know that we’ve been picking up some strange readings in your area recently.”

Ichigo blinked blearily. “Strange readings?”

“Yeah, some odd reiatsu patterns. Little traces popping up all over town. It all seems to originate from the same source, the same hollow, but it jumps pretty unpredictably from place to place. Frankly, we don’t know what’s going on, but I can think of a few possibilities. You could be dealing with something that moves quicker than our instruments can track, which, needless to say, would be incredibly fast. Or it could be moving through multiple dimensions. There have even been records of hollows with self-replicating powers. Could be anything, really.”

“Ok, I get what you’re saying. Thanks for the warning.”

“Sure. You want me to redirect you to someone who can get you some backup?”

“Uh...it’s just one hollow, right?” Ichigo mumbled sleepily.

“Seems to be.”

“Well then, my friends and I should be able to handle it. I’ll let them know to be on the lookout for it.”

“Ok. Call back if you change your mind.”

“Uh-huh. Thanks. Bye.”

Ichigo carefully set the phone back down on the nightstand, then let his head drop heavily back down onto his pillow. He was so tired. Surely whatever hollow was hanging around this time, he could wait to deal with it until the sun was up.

His last thought before drifting back to sleep was to wonder distantly where the research and development division had got his phone number from.

“Good morning, Kurosaki-kun!”

“Hey.”

“‘Morning, Inoue, Tatsuki.”

“‘Morning, Ichigo.”

“‘Morning, Mizuiro. Hey, where’s Keigo?”

“Oh...he texted me this morning that he wouldn’t be here today. Did you hear, there was a riot in town late last night? Apparently it was right near his place, and his sister doesn’t want him going out for a while.”

“What? I hadn’t heard anything about that! What was the riot about?”

“I heard about it on the news this morning,” Orihime put in. “No one seems to know anything about it. All of a sudden people were just running and screaming everywhere. A couple people were taken into custody, but the police said they aren’t being cooperative. It’s all very strange.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Well, I hope they get to the bottom of it soon. Keigo’s probably already going stir crazy at home.”

“Alright, everyone in your seats,” their homeroom teacher called from the front of the classroom. “It’s time to start class!”

“Meet on the roof at lunch,” Ichigo leaned in to whisper to Orihime as they passed each other on the way to their seats.

“Is it important?” she whispered back, turning her head and lingering for a moment. “Soul reaper stuff?”

“Soul reaper stuff.”

She nodded slightly, and kept going.

The rest of the morning passed fairly uneventfully. Ichigo took notes and answered questions and followed along in his textbook, and just generally waited for the bell to dismiss them for lunch.

Once it finally did, he flagged down Chad and Uryuu and led them up the stairs to the school’s rooftop, which was usually a safe bet to be empty, and thus usually where they had all their important ‘soul reaper stuff’ conversations.

“What’s all this about, Kurosaki?” Uryuu asked, a bit testily. “I haven’t noticed anything out of the ordinary lately.”

“Well, neither have I, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there,” Ichigo answered. “I got a call this morning, from Soul Society, saying there might be something powerful out there.”

“‘Might’?”

“Yeah, might. Akon-san said they were getting weird readings. Like, tiny bits of one hollow, in lots of different places. According to him, that could be any kind of special ability. He wanted me to tell you about it, so we could all keep an eye out, just in case.”

“Sorry, who’s Akon-san, again?”

“He works for Kurotsuchi. He’s kind of odd, and I’m pretty sure he, like, doesn’t sleep, but I think he’s trustworthy.”

“Well, if Kurosaki-kun trusts him, I trust him. Maybe I’ll go for a bike ride around town later and see if I can sense anything.”

“Please be careful, Inoue-san. You heard about the riots, right?”

“Was there more than one?”

“There was another one early this morning,” Chad spoke up. “Near the park.”

“Weird. I never thought something like that would ever happen in Karakura.”

“Well, regardless, it’s happening. So, be careful.”

“I will, Ishida-kun, don’t worry.”

“Anything else, Ichigo?”

“Nope, I don’t think so. Soul Society has started calling me for reports whenever something happens, so if you find anything, let me know, yeah?.”

“Yeah.”

“Can do!”

“Ugh, fine. Come on, lunch break is almost over. We should get back downstairs before we’re missed.”

The next day was a Saturday, so Ichigo spent the afternoon hopping from rooftop to rooftop, focusing hard, trying to find a trace of this mysterious reiatsu that Akon had specifically made a point to make him aware of. But after circling the perimeter of the whole town and finding nothing more than a few wandering spirits, he was starting to wonder if there actually was a threat out there, after all.

He paused to rest a moment on top of the bank around the corner from his school, wondering what to do. Was there somewhere he hadn’t checked yet? Was it possible that this hollow was somehow completely cloaking their presence from him? Could it be that the research team’s instruments were just malfunctioning, and there actually wasn’t a hollow at all?

His thoughts were interrupted- once again- by his phone ringing from his back pocket.

“Hello?”

“Ichi-nii?” Yuzu’s voice sounded in his ear. “Where are you right now?”

“Oh, I’m, uh...in town...why?”

“Where in town?”

“Near the school. Yuzu, is everything ok? Are you ok?”

“I’m fine. It’s you I’m worried about! There was just a breaking news announcement that there’s another riot happening, and I was worried that you’d be caught up in it…But it seems like you’re on the opposite side of town.”

“Yeah, I’m ok. It’s all quiet here.”

“That’s a relief. Please hurry home, Ichi-nii. There’s no telling when another riot will pop up.”

Ichigo bit his lip, thinking. “I still have some business to take care of,” he said carefully. “But I won’t be long. Don’t worry about me, Yuzu, I’ll be ok.”

“Mmmm….ok, fine. But if you aren’t home by dinner time, Dad and Karin and I are going to come find you and drag you!”

“Alright, alright. Home by dinner, I promise.”

Ichigo hung up and put his phone back in his pocket, his thoughts racing. Try as he might, he hadn’t been able to find anything out of the ordinary that would indicate the presence of a hollow in town.

But there _was_ something out of the ordinary going on, and even though on the surface it didn’t seem like something he should be concerned about, maybe he shouldn’t be ignoring it.

He leapt off the bank roof, heading towards where Yuzu had said the latest riot had broken out.

He heard the commotion long before he could actually see any of it. Sirens wailing, people screaming, and glass breaking. When he did land atop a building with a good view of what was going on, he stopped short, not knowing quite what to make of what he was seeing.

It was complete chaos. One end of the street was almost completely blocked by the aftermath of what seemed to have been a high speed car crash. Most of the rioters themselves carried makeshift weapons and were using them to smash store windows and antagonize the unlucky passerby. There were people running everywhere- some clearly panicking and trying to get away, some actually running toward the rioters with eager looks on their faces. There were a few policemen already on the scene, with apparently little more idea what was going on or how to stop it than Ichigo had.

At first, he didn’t _feel_ anything strange about what was going on below him. These just seemed to be normal townspeople. But, when he closed his eyes and really sharpened his senses, he found that there actually was something...not the actual presence of a hollow, but the general aura of one. A mere trace, as if one had been there, but was now gone.

Well, that was...something. Progress, he supposed.

Upon closer inspection, the rioters seemed to be moving in groups of three or four. Ichigo glanced around, singled out one group on the edge of the scene, and jumped.

He landed behind them and took out the first three before they even had a chance to wonder what hit them, with deft swings of his sword, being careful to use the flat of the blade. The fourth, he caught by the shoulder, not gripping tightly enough to really hurt, but not so loosely that she could break free, either.

He got quite the surprise when she whipped around and he realized that he was holding one of his middle school teachers.

With a screech, she brought her other arm around, fingers curled, evidently attempting to claw at his face. Ichigo blocked her without trouble- there wasn’t much power behind her swing. Nothing superhuman, anyway.

“Sensei? What on earth is going on here?!”

“Wouldn’t you like to know,” she snarled, sneering at him.

Ichigo blinked. He knew for a fact that this woman was just an ordinary human. She shouldn't even have been able to see him in this form.

“Tell me what’s going on!” he demanded, pushing his face close to hers and hoping he looked more intimidating than confused.

She didn’t look very intimidated. In fact, a smile began spreading across her face.

“There you are,” she said quietly, in a deep, masculine voice that clearly didn’t belong to her.

Ichigo blinked, taken aback. “What? Who said that?”

“I did,” his former teacher responded in the same low voice. “I’ve been looking for you. You were harder to find than I thought you’d be, Mr. Shinigami Substitute.”

“Who are you? How are you doing that? And how do you know who I am?”

“Oh, I know all about you! When someone ravages through your homeland and all but single-handedly overthrows an entire regime of supposedly all-powerful individuals, people tend to take notice, you know?”

“So...you are a hollow, then.”

“But of course.”

“Are you here for revenge on me, or something? Is that why you’re doing this?”

“My my, so many questions. No, this is not revenge. I was not affiliated with Aizen or any of his pet tramps. It may surprise you to hear this, but not all of us were willing to just sit back and let them walk all over us. Some of us gained our power on our own, without the help of the shinigami’s magic toys.”

“Then why?!”

“Simple. If you want to be successful, if you want to make a name for yourself, if you really want to _make it_...then, you’ve got to do something no one has ever done before. And you, Mr. Shinigami Substitute? No one has ever managed to defeat you. _No one_. So that’s where I decided to start.”

The teacher leaned in even closer to Ichigo, so that their faces were mere centimeters apart.

“I’m gonna take you out,” the voice of the hollow controlling her hissed, using her mouth to grin widely at him.

Ichigo just stood there for a moment, frozen stiff. He didn’t fully understand what was going on, and he didn’t know what to do about it, either.

“Let this woman go,” he said eventually, deciding to focus on the most pressing issue at hand first.

“No.”

“Let her go, or I’ll-”

“You’ll what? You’ll come find me and tear me limb from limb? Drag my corpse through the streets like all your other enemies before me?”

Without warning, there was a sharp blow to the back of Ichigo’s head, startling him enough that he loosened his grip on the teacher enough for her to wrench free of his grasp. Ichigo gasped in pain and surprise. He spun around, to find that while they had been talking, several more of the rioters had crept up behind them. One of them was carrying a metal baseball bat, evidently the thing that just hit him.

“Good luck with that,” the hollow’s voice said, echoing from each of their throats.

Ichigo reached for his sword, but before he could do anything the rioters scattered, each running in a different direction, leaving him standing there alone on the sidewalk.

Keeping his promise to Yuzu, Ichigo hurried home. The encounter at the riot had left him more shaken than he cared to admit, but he couldn’t afford to lose his cool. He needed to calmly and logically assess what had just happened, and make a plan of action to deal with it.

But that, historically, had never been his strong suit. So he went straight upstairs to his bedroom to call his friends.

They all came, under the pretense of having to work on a group project together. They sat on Ichigo’s bedroom floor and listened carefully as he clumsily tried to describe what had happened.

“....And then they all ran off. Just like that. I was surprised, I didn’t know what I should- ah, Inoue?”

“Hold still,” she instructed, clambering up onto the bed beside him and gently turning his shoulders. “Let me see your head.”

“A-ah, no, Inoue, it’s fine, really…Ow! Ow, stop!”

“Uh-huh, I thought so. Now hold still, and let me heal you.”

Ichigo exhaled heavily, but gave up trying to resist. In exchange, Orihime stopped pressing down on the lump on the back of his skull where he’d been hit and instead began to use her powers to reverse the damage.

“You said the others were all using the hollow’s voice too?” Chad asked.

“Yeah. It was creepy.”

“So he was controlling all of them, too?”

“I guess so.”

“Let me see if I can get this straight,” Uryuu said, his eyes shut tight in concentration, his hands held palm-out in front of him. “This hollow...this hollow, right, we can assume is a very high level one. He’d have to be, right? I mean, he’s got ambition, he’s planned ahead, he’s been here for days now and hasn’t lost control of his hunger and started attacking people.”

“That we know of.”

“Alright, that we know of.”

“But I agree, this doesn’t seem like the work of some ordinary hollow.”

“His powers let him control people. Well, humans, at least. I think it’s probably safe to assume he could control other life forms too, if he wanted. But he’s not, he’s got humans. The number of riots are increasing, from which we can assume the number of people under his control is still growing. But he’s not using them to attack. Just to start shit in town. Why?”

“He was looking for me,” Ichigo said. “He told me so.”

“Ok, but he found you. And then he ran away again. Didn’t try to control you at all. _Why_?”

“Maybe he couldn’t get control of me, since he wasn’t actually there himself.”

“Or maybe he just can’t control soul reapers. Maybe humans is all he can do after all. But that still doesn’t explain why he didn’t try to hurt you.”

“Maybe he just wasn’t ready yet.”

“What do you mean, Inoue?” Ichigo asked, taking care not to turn his head to address her.

“Well, he very plainly told you that he wants to kill you. But he should have known that a handful of human thralls wouldn’t be enough to do that. I think he probably has some sort of plan, but maybe he hasn’t completed his preparations yet...there, how does that feel?”

Her fingers gently pressed the spot where the rioter had hit him again, and this time there was no pain.

“Better. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” Job done, Orihime slid down off the bed, back to her original place between Uryuu and Chad.

“I think it’s probably safe to assume that he wants to lure you into a trap, Kurosaki-kun,” she continued, “and the thralls are the bait. I mean, if you want to free them, you have to defeat him, right?”

“‘Thralls’, Inoue-san?”

“The people that the hollow is controlling! You know, because he has them under some sort of spell.”

“I don’t really think that’s what’s going on here. Wouldn’t it be better to call them-”

“Ishida, who cares what they’re called! You guys are supposed to be helping me figure out how to stop this guy!”

“Al_right_, Kurosaki, alright! Calm down, jeez. We’ll think of something.”

It was hours before the four of them finally gave up and decided to call it a day. None of them felt that they had made much progress, but they were worn out and all too well aware that continuing to worry about it wasn’t going to get them anywhere.

It was evening by then; outside the shadows were long and the first stars were beginning to emerge in the distant sky above them. There hadn’t been any more news of riots anywhere in town, but that didn’t stop Isshin from insisting point-blank that Ichigo escort Orihime home.

“Really, Kurosaki-kun, you don’t have to take me all the way there...I can take care of myself…”

“I know you can, Inoue, but my dad doesn’t know that. Well, even if he did, he’d probably say the same thing. He’s kinda old fashioned like that. Besides, protecting the people of Karakura is my whole job description. I don’t mind walking you back.”

“Is that all you see me as?” Orihime pouted. “Just a citizen like all the others who needs your protection?”

“No, no! You’re an important friend and comrade. Who also coincidentally happens to be one of the citizens I’ve been tasked with protecting.”

“What about us, then?”

“I can only turn one way at the corner of third street, Ishida. If you two want me to hold your hands all the way home too, you’re going to have to swing by Inoue’s with me first.”

Uryuu rolled his eyes, apparently having nothing to say to that. Orihime, on the other hand, seemed well-pleased with Ichigo’s answer.

“I’ve got some ice cream in my freezer if you want some, Kurosaki-kun. As thanks for the protection, since Soul Society doesn’t actually pay you.”

“They don’t pay you?”

“Nope. I’ve been meaning to talk to someone about that…”

The four of them walked on through the evening, passing from the spotlight of one streetlamp to another. The streets were deserted; there were hardly even any cars on the road. Everything was uncomfortably still and quiet, as if the whole town was collectively holding its breath.

“I really hope we find this hollow soon,” Orihime sighed miserably, wrapping her arms around herself to ward off the chill. “All those poor people who’ve been hurt, or enthralled…”

“We’ll find him,” Chad said determinedly.

“His powers are kind of creepy, aren’t they?” Uryuu said. “It’s so hard to tell the thralls apart from the normal population. And it seems like he has a really high level of control over them. He can see what they see and hear what they hear, if he wants. He could be anywhere.”

“Closer than you think,” a deep voice sounded from behind them.

Ichigo whipped around, cursing, and reaching out to drag Orihime and Chad, the two closest to him, back, away from the source of the voice.

“Back up, back up!”

“Is that him?” Uryuu hissed, jumping back too.

Out from the shadows of the mouth of a nearby alleyway stepped a little boy, probably only about five or six years old. But in the light, Ichigo could the twisted grin on his face, and the same malice that he had seen in the eyes of the other thralls.

“My my,” the boy said mockingly, “you kids shouldn’t be out wandering the streets at this hour. It’s dangerous out there, you know.”

“Stop that,” Ichigo snapped. It was extremely disconcerting, hearing that voice coming out of a child’s mouth. “If it’s a fight you want, then fight me already! Let that boy go, and come fight me yourself!”

“Tsk, so impatient. Don’t worry, Mr. Shinigami Substitute. You’ll get your turn. You’ll all get your turn.”

“What do you mean by that?” Orihime asked suspiciously.

“The big event is just around the corner, my dear. Tomorrow, in fact. I look forward to watching all of you play out your parts.”

“The big event?”

“Tell us what you’re planning!”

“Now, what would be the fun in that? No, no, I think I’m going to leave it as a surprise. Don’t worry...when the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”

The boy turned and began walking away down the street.

“See you tomorrow,” he leered at them over his shoulder. “I’ll be waiting.”

Uryuu took a step forward and raised his arms, a telltale blue light gathering at his fingertips.

“No, don’t shoot!” Chad hastily lunged over and grabbed him by the wrist. “That’s not the hollow, just a thrall.”

Uryuu growled in frustration, but obediently lowered his hands.

“This has to be a trap, right?,” Orihime said. “He’s been five steps ahead of us this whole time. What are we going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Ichigo admitted. “I don’t want to play his games either, but…”

“But he has half the town under his control,” Uryuu finished quietly.

“Exactly. We might not have a choice.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey there everybody! Thanks for reading the first chapter of One Second Chance! I hope you're all on the edge of your seats, waiting for the 'big event'...and of course to find out who's the one behind that dreaded 'major character death' tag. I must confess, I'm having way more fun with this one than I probably should be.
> 
> There'll be three chapters to this one in all! Be on the lookout for them soon, hopefully!


	2. Grief

Ichigo didn’t sleep very well that night. He couldn’t stop thinking about everything the hollow had said to him, and to the others. The promise of an unspecified attack coming in the next day, in particular, was driving him crazy. All he did was lay in bed, his imagination running wild thinking about what might be coming.

Which, of course, was exactly the reason that the hollow had told them about it. Ichigo had no doubt about that. This guy was smart, too smart.

He spent the next morning pacing his bedroom floor, grinding his teeth, waiting. Try as he might, he couldn’t come up with anything he could do to prevent this attack from coming. All he could do was wait. Wait, and react.

He had been so focused on avoiding the hollow’s trap, that he hadn’t realized until too late that he was already caught up in it.

Around noon, his phone rang. Ichigo dived for it, rushing to accept the call and answer.

“Ishida! Ishida, is that you? What is it, what’s happening?”

“Turn on the news, right now.” On the other end of the line, Uryuu’s tone was tense and urgent.

Ichigo didn’t stop to ask any more questions, just bolted out of his room and down the stairs.

“Ichi-nii?” Karin called from the kitchen, sounding concerned. “Everything ok?”

“What channel?” Ichigo asked Uryuu, holding the phone in one hand and aiming the remote with the other.

“Doesn’t matter. It’s on everywhere.”

“What’s going on?” Karin demanded, hurrying to join Ichigo in front of the tv.

Uryuu had been right- the first thing Ichigo saw when the screen blinked to life was a ‘breaking news’ banner, and a stressed-looking news anchor in an otherwise-empty studio.

“_-reports still coming in_,” he said, one hand cupped around his earpiece. “_More of the riots that Karakura has been experiencing the past few days, this time three of them...no, no, four, repeat, four separate riots, all happening at the same time. Several people have already been injured or perhaps killed in the massive assault on the downtown civic center. Civilians are advised to seek shelter indoors-_”

“The hospital is under attack,” Uryuu’s voice said in Ichigo’s ear. “If they get in, the patients…”

“You go,” Ichigo said, turning away from the tv and running to the entrance hall to put on his shoes. “Go, help them. We’ll take care of the rest.”

“But-”

“Go, Ishida!”

“Alright.”

The call clicked off. Ichigo started dialing Chad’s number.

“Ichi-nii, stop,” Karin shouted, following him into the entrance hall. “You can’t go out there! It’s dangerous!”

“It’s an emergency, Karin, I have to.”

“But it has nothing to do with you!”

“It does! Look, I’m sorry, but I have to...Chad? Chad, have you seen what’s happening?”

“He’s trying to split us up, Ichigo.” From his voice, Ichigo could tell that Chad was already in motion. “These attacks are all over the place...the hospital, the park, the mall, the civic center. That can’t be a coincidence.”

“I know. But we have to try to-”

“Ichi-nii, don’t!”

“Karin, I’m sorry, but I have to go! You stay here, protect Yuzu. Chad, Ishida is at the hospital. I’m heading to the civic center,” Ichigo said as he dashed out the door. “That seems like the biggest one.”

“Do you think the hollow will actually be there?”

“Don’t know. I’m about to find out. Will you call Inoue?”

“Yes. I’m closer to the mall, so I’ll send her to the park. Be careful, Ichigo.”

“You too.”

Ichigo hung up and hastily shoved the phone into his pocket before leaping up, gaining speed, running as fast as he could to the center of town, even though he knew he was just letting himself be led deeper and deeper into the trap.

The riot in progress at the civic center was in a completely different league than the one Ichigo had seen the day before. There were dozens of thralls, each armed with some kind of improvised weapon and seemingly hellbent on causing as much damage as they possibly could. Something somewhere was on fire- the smoke lay thick over the whole scene like fog.

Ichigo didn’t see any civilians running from this riot. He had a sinking feeling that anyone who had been unlucky enough to get caught up in this hadn’t had the chance to get away.

There was no easy solution to this, no simple tactic in his bag of tricks that would end this painlessly. This was going to be a fight, and he knew it. So he decided to jump right in.

“Hey,” he yelled at the top of his voice, landing on the street a little ways down from the civic center building itself. “Hey, I’m here! I’m here! You got what you wanted!”

As soon as they heard his voice, the thralls immediately dropped what they were doing, whipped around and just _stared_ at him. Ichigo gripped his sword a little tighter in the sudden silence, and stood his ground.

At the other end of the street, the crowd slowly parted and one single figure stepped into view out of the smoke. Ichigo knew that he had found the hollow they’d been looking for...now that he was no longer bothering to hide his presence, and his powerful aura was hard to miss.

But he didn’t look quite like any hollow Ichigo had ever encountered before. At first glance he appeared almost human- definitely a vasto lorde, then, great- but up close, his power shimmered in the air around him like a haze, and the dark hole in the center of his chest belied his true nature. He wore a white tunic, twin gold armbands, and a blood-red cape that billowed behind him like a dramatic movie effect. In his hand was a short, unadorned blade. His incomplete bone mask rested atop his blonde hair almost like a crown. And in truth, he carried himself like royalty, too, with his head held high and his confident stride.

“Welcome, Mr. Shinigami Substitute,” he called out in that now-familiar deep voice. “I’ve been expecting you.”

“Cut the crap,” Ichigo shouted. “I’m here, like you wanted. So let these people go, and come fight me yourself!”

“You seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of what’s going on here,” the hollow said, smirking. “These people?”

“They _are_ me,” said a man standing mere feet from Ichigo in the hollow’s voice, making him jump. “My ability, La Encantadora, allows me to share their senses, their minds. The only way to break that connection against my will is to kill either them, or me.”

“So please,” continued a woman on the other side of the crowd, “believe me when I say that I _will_ be fighting you myself.”

“All of me,” the crowd chanted as one. It sent cold shivers up Ichigo’s spine.

“I won’t fight these people,” he said, as firmly as he could.

“I don’t recall giving you a choice,” the hollow leered.

“I won’t do it,” Ichigo repeated. “I’m going to stop you, and take my city back!”

“Do not take me so lightly, boy,” the hollow said loudly. “I am Sabell, the next Emperor of Hueco Mundo and the all worlds beyond. I am he that kills you!”

He spread his arms wide, grinning, and the thralls all surged forward at once, raising their weapons against Ichigo.

Ichigo dodged quickly out of the way of the first wave, but the street was, as battlefields go, pretty narrow. By the time the second wave was upon him, there was nowhere for him to go, and he was forced to raise his sword to block the strikes they aimed at him. He shoved against the thralls with all his might, throwing them down to the ground. But no sooner had they hit the ground than their places had been taken by others, and Ichigo was closed in again.

Ichigo quickly began to realize he was in over his head. He had gone into this with the intent of just targeting the hollow, and simply redirecting any of the townspeople that happened to get in his way as harmlessly as possible. But it wasn’t working out like that. The thralls didn’t fight like ordinary, untrained townspeople. They fought with all of Sabell’s instincts and experience behind them. They fought viciously, and they fought with brutal killing intent.

After a few more fruitless attempts to clear a path for himself, Ichigo was forced to get rough with the thralls. It hurt knowing that he was hitting them hard enough to break bones, but it had to be done. Otherwise, he would never get to Sabell.

Bit by bit, he fought his way through. The thralls came at him with broom handles, bits of chain, tire jacks, and whatever else was to hand. Along the way he took several blows- there was no way he could have blocked them all. There were just too many. But he kept going.

As he got closer to the other end of the street, his attackers grew even more frenzied. They were afraid, Ichigo realized. Sabell was afraid. Ichigo was getting a little close for comfort, and that worried him.

Ichigo knew what to do with fear. Fear made you sloppy, left openings in your technique. He pressed forward, carefully aiming for those weak spots, and within moments, Sabell was in his line of sight.

He didn’t let the fear get the better of him for long. He didn’t turn and run, as Ichigo had half thought he might. Instead, he readied his sword and charged at Ichigo, swinging his blade with a ferocious shout.

Things were really starting to get serious now. Fighting humans that were being controlled by a high-level hollow was one thing. Fighting with that hollow at the same time was a completely different story. Sabell’s strikes had much more power behind them. And the the thralls just kept coming.

Ichigo gritted his teeth. He hadn’t wanted it to come to this, but he didn’t see that he had a choice. He planted his feet and pulled Zangetsu back over his shoulder.

“Getsuga tenshou!” he yelled, bringing his blade around in a huge, sweeping arc. The thralls around him were sent flying by the energy wave, landing hard on the pavement or rebounding off the walls of nearby buildings. Sabell quickly raised his sword to block the worst of the impact, but even he was thrown back a few feet.

Ichigo knew he had to take advantage of that space he had created. He rushed forward and put Sabell between himself and the thralls, so that he’d be able to see them coming if any of them got up for more.

Now that it was one on one, Ichigo felt more confident. Sabell was tough, that was for sure, but his true strength was in numbers. Individually, he wasn’t on the same level as some of Ichigo’s previous opponents. Within a few moments, Ichigo had the upper hand, and a few moments after that, he felt one of his strikes connect.

Sabell gasped in pain, quickly jumping back away from Ichigo. Zangetsu had left a long slash from his shoulder to forearm, and his sword arm was already drenched in blood.

“Well played,” Sabell hissed, eyes narrowed. “Well played, indeed. You win this battle, Shinigami Substitute. But don’t think that you’ve won the war just yet! Next time we meet, I _will_ kill you!”

He turned on his heel and dashed off down the street. Ichigo started forward after him, but before he got far a group of thralls jumped into his path. By the time he had pushed them aside, Sabell was gone, down a side alley, his presence once again hidden.

Ichigo sighed. As much as he wanted to go after Sabell and try to find him, his main priority right now had to be to help these thralls, to get them medical attention and then get them safely locked up somewhere.

“Kurosaki?” Uryuu’s voice called out from behind him. “You ok over there?”

“Ishida? What are you doing here?”

“I finished up at the hospital and thought you might need some help with the hollow. But, uh…” Uryuu glanced around at all the people on the ground around them. “I guess you already took care of it?”

“Not exactly. The hollow got away,” Ichigo said, reaching around to secure Zangetsu in its place on his back. At the same time, he reflexively sent his senses outward, scanning the town for anything out of the ordinary in the aftermath of the battle.

“Well, that’s not great. But, you’ve got him on the run now, and that’s a step in the right direc-”

“Ishida,” Ichigo interrupted abruptly, “where’s Inoue?”

“Huh? What do you mean? Didn’t you tell Sado to send her to the...the….oh, no.” Uryuu’s face fell as he extended his own senses.

“She must be hurt! Come on, we’ve gotta go!” Ichigo turned and took off at a dead run towards the park.

“Wait, Kurosaki!” Uryuu fell in behind him, struggling to keep up. “We shouldn’t rush in, it could be dangerous!”

“Of course it’s dangerous! That’s why we have to hurry, we have to help her!”

Ichigo sprinted as fast as he could manage across town to the park, his heart hammering in his chest the whole time, his breath coming in sharp, quick stabs.

“Inoue!” he shouted, vaulting the fence at the perimeter of the park grounds and heading through the thick trees towards more open ground. “Inoue, are you there?”

As the trees thinned out, he began to encounter a few unconscious people on the ground. Whether thralls or just normal civilians he didn’t know, but it was the best clue he had, and so he followed the trail they left.

Once he broke out of the treeline and into open space, he began to get a clearer idea of what had happened here. There likely hadn’t been as many thralls here as there had been downtown where he’d been, but there still seemed to have been a sizable fight. Most of them were gone now- called away by Sabell, no doubt, when he had been injured.

“Inoue!” Ichigo called again, frantically scouring the ground for any sign of her. “Inoue, where are you? Can you hear- _Inoue_!”

There, in the far corner of his vision. He could see her auburn hair, a stark contrast to the green of the grass around her.

Ichigo ran towards her, and as he approached, what he saw made his heart drop like a stone.

Orihime was laying facedown, in a dark pool of her own blood.

“No, no, no,” he muttered, stumbling to a stop, fighting for breath as panic began to set in.

“Kurosaki!” Uryuu yelled distantly from somewhere behind him.

Ichigo forced himself forward, hastily dropping to his knees beside Orihime and reaching out with trembling hands to turn her over, to feel for a pulse. Some sign of life. Anything.

But it was no use. Though her body was still warm in his hands, her wound was deep. Part of him knew that there was nothing he could have done, even if he had made it in time.

“No...no, no, Inoue, please, no…”

Her eyes were half open, but unfocused and lifeless. And no matter how desperately he searched, Ichigo could find no sign of either a heartbeat or a trace of her spiritual energy.

“Inoue,” he said again, louder this time, as if he could wake her if he just tried. Tears began to well in the corners of his eyes, blurring his vision. “N-no, Inoue, no, please…”

She remained still in his hands.

Ichigo curled up around her body instinctively, protectively, clutching her to his chest as the tears started to come in earnest.

Uryuu stood a few paces behind him, his hands clasped tightly over his mouth, frozen in place by shock, disbelief, and horror.

A moment later, Chad arrived at the scene, breathing hard, his clothing torn and bloody from his own battle. He stopped short when he saw Orihime, his eyes wide. Then, he intuitively reached out and pulled Uryuu close against him, wordlessly seeking reassurance and comfort.

Uryuu let himself be held, turned his face into Chad’s chest and squeezed his eyes shut so that he didn’t have to see that sight anymore. But he could still hear Ichigo’s heartbroken cries, and the image of him holding Orihime’s body remained stubbornly there in his mind.

For a time- there was no way for any of them to know how long- they stayed as they were, paralyzed. And then, quite suddenly, Isshin was there. He rushed past Chad and Uryuu and headed straight for his son.

“Ichigo,” he said quietly, kneeling down beside him and putting his hand on his shoulder. “Ichigo, here, let me…”

Gently, he pried Ichigo’s hands away from Orihime, and just as gently he laid her down on the grass. Then he wrapped his arms around Ichigo, let him lay his head on his shoulder and sob.

For a few moments, all was silent but for Ichigo crying. Then, far in the distance, the distinctive sound of a wailing siren reached them.

“Ichigo,” Isshin said, still gently, but firmly, “we have to leave now. You hear me? We have to go, right now.”

“W-what? No, n-no, we can’t-”

“I know you want to stay. I know you do, and I’m sorry, but we have to go. We can’t be here when the authorities get here.”

“I won’t leave Inoue!”

“Inoue’s gone, Ichigo. Come on, now, up you go.”

He pulled Ichigo to his feet. Ichigo tried to resist, but his strength was gone, and he had no choice but to let his father wrap one of his arms around his shoulders and pull him along.

“You guys, too,” Isshin said, looking over to Chad and Uryuu, clinging to each other and shaking like two leaves in a storm. “Come on, you can’t stay here. Let’s go.”

He started back towards the cover of the trees, and they followed him.

Isshin led them in silence back through the park and out onto the street, speaking only to ask Chad where he lived, and to urge Ichigo on whenever his steps faltered. He took the long way around to Chad’s apartment complex, avoiding the main roads. Once they were there, he went all the way to Chad’s front door, and didn’t take his eyes off him until he was safely inside.

“Go with him,” he told Uryuu then.

“Wh...what?”

“Neither of you should be alone right now. Don’t worry, I’ll call your dad later and let him know you’re ok. Go on, get in there.”

Uryuu hesitated for a moment, but then nodded and stepped forward, through the apartment door after Chad.

“Now let’s get you home,” Isshin said, moving back the way they’d come and dragging Ichigo with him.

Ichigo didn’t answer. His earlier sobs had subsided into a quiet but steady flow of tears, his strangled cries reduced to quick, shallow, shuddering gasps of air. He walked as if in a daze, and Isshin could feel him still trembling.

The trip back to their house seemed to take an eternity. Every step felt to Ichigo like an enormous effort. It had never been so hard to keep putting one foot in front of the other before. He wondered distantly if, once he stopped moving, he’d ever be able to start again.

Eventually, they made it. Isshin unlocked the front door and then supported Ichigo across the threshold, pausing once they were inside to double lock it again behind them.

Yuzu and Karin came running to meet them the moment they heard them enter, talking loudly over each other, but they stopped short when they saw the state Ichigo was in.

“Ichi-nii?” Yuzu asked very quietly, staring wide-eyed at Ichigo.

“Dad, what happened?” Karin demanded. “Is Ichi-nii ok? Is he hurt?”

“Calm down girls, please,” Isshin said wearily. “Your brother’s going through something very hard right now, and he needs his space, ok? Let me take him upstairs, and then I’ll come back down and answer your questions, I promise. Come on, Ichigo.”

He half-carried Ichigo up to the second floor and into his room, where he deposited him on the bed.

“Wait here, ok? I’ll be back in a moment.”

Isshin walked back out of the room, closing the door behind him. Ichigo laid where he was and stared up at the blank, white ceiling. He was beginning to feel all the hits he’d taken earlier. His body ached all over. His chest felt too tight, and his heartbeat seemed to him too loud and too forceful to be contained within it.

Downstairs, he heard the sound of his father’s voice, low and somber, explaining to the twins what had happened, asking them if they understood. He heard Yuzu start to cry. And he heard Karin’s voice, shaking with the effort of holding back her own tears, as she answered. A few moments later, Isshin’s footsteps sounded on the stairs once more.

He entered the room and closed the door. Then he pulled out Ichigo’s desk chair and sunk down into it, sighing heavily.

“Are you ok?” he asked.

Ichigo mutely shook his head, shutting his eyes tight against a fresh wave of tears.

“There was nothing you could have done, Ichigo.You know that, right? Those rioters-”

“What do you know about them?”

“...Admittedly, not everything. But I know they weren’t just ordinary people. Were they? And they were well-organized. Whatever you did to hold them off, I’m sure it was the best you could.”

“It wasn’t enough.” Ichigo’s voice came out rough and hoarse from crying. “Inoue...I couldn’t protect Inoue.”

“I know how you’re feeling right now, Ichigo, but you’ve got to understand, it wasn’t your fau-”

“You _don’t_ know,” Ichigo snapped, raising himself up on his elbows to glare at Isshin. “You don’t know how I feel at all, so don’t pretend that you do!”

Isshin closed his eyes, lowered his head. “How do you think I felt when I lost your mother?” he asked quietly, and Ichigo’s heart throbbed even more painfully.

“...Sorry,” he muttered, dropping back onto the bed.

“It’s alright. That was a long time ago. But trust me when I say I remember how it felt back then, when it had just happened. There was nothing you could have done.”

“I shouldn’t have gone along with his plan,” Ichigo muttered, digging the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I shouldn’t have let her fight. I should have _protected_ her. That’s my _job_. But I let him get to me. She’s dead, because of me.”

Isshin sighed, and didn’t ask who the ‘him’ in question was. Instead he said, “you should get some rest, Ichigo. You have to stay strong. The people of this town still need you. Ok? Yuzu and Karin need you to stay strong. We all do. So try to sleep, and then we’ll talk about what to do next.”

He got up and slid the chair back into its place under the desk, opened and then closed the bedroom door once more.

Ichigo was left laying there, alone with the crushing weight of the pain, and the guilt, and the grief.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translation note: I use 'encantadora' here to mean 'enchantress', though it can also mean 'lovely'. The name Sabell, on the other hand, is purely made up and doesn't mean anything!
> 
> ANYWAY. Oof. Thank you for reading chapter two, everybody. I really don't remember the last time I was this emotionally connected to anything I've written, so it means a lot to be able to share it with you! Between working on Sabell's design (he's just a throwaway villain character but I had sooo much fun creating him, and ended up really liking the end result) and actually sitting down to write out the scene where they find Orihime in the park, I am just. Emotionally exhausted, haha.
> 
> I feel like it's worth mentioning that I am usually not a fan of the whole 'female character's suffering is used as the incentive for the main male character's development' thing- goodness knows there's already enough of that in Bleach as it is- but honestly, I feel like this was the only way this particular fic could have gone. Orihime's death is going to be Ichigo's motivation for all the crazy stuff he does in the next and final chapter, so! Be on the lookout for that, I guess. Thanks again for reading, sorry for leaving such long notes ^^;


	3. Reset, Try Again

Three days went by.

In that time, the riots escalated to catastrophic levels as steadily more people were made into thralls. The authorities tried their best to contain the situation, but with little success. They advised those who were not willing to evacuate to barricade their doors and stay inside.

Chad and Uryuu did what they could, but their options were limited if they didn’t want to seriously harm the thralls, and their efforts were largely useless against the small army that Sabell had amassed.

Ichigo tried to help. He tried. But Orihime’s death had really hit him hard. He didn’t sleep, he barely ate. He was careless and distracted on the battlefield. After a while, Chad forcefully took him by the arm and escorted him back home, insisting that he stay there until he was ready to fight for real again.

And so there he stayed, up in his room, sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees and his head down. He felt numb. Stuck. Like the shock still hadn’t completely worn off. Knowing that Sabell had targeted Orihime because of her connection to him tormented him. How could he bring himself to keep fighting, knowing that it would only put his family and friends in more danger? He hadn’t been able to protect Orihime...how could he possibly protect the rest of them?

“Ichigo,” his father’s voice interrupted his thoughts, accompanied by the soft sound of his door being pushed open.

He raised his head. It was dark in the room; evening had come on without him noticing.

“Get up, we’re going out.” Isshin said, gesturing over his shoulder.

Ichigo frowned. “What?”

“We’re going out. Come on now, let’s go.”

“Where?”

“Urahara’s.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Less question-asking, more getting up and following, please.”

Slowly, reluctantly, Ichigo unfolded his limbs and stood up.

“Why?” he repeated.

“Because,” Isshin said with an air of forced patience, “Things can’t go on like this, Ichigo. And I can’t do much for you, I know that. But, if anyone can help you...he can.”

Ichigo didn’t see what Urahara was going to be able to do about Sabell- if he had some special trick up his sleeve, wouldn’t he already have used it?- but he went along with his father anyway. He didn’t know what else to do. Part of him recognized that Isshin was right, and he needed to get his act together and fight back. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to move forward. He just didn’t know how.

The little sign on the shop’s door read ‘closed’, but as they approached, they could hear Urahara’s and Tessai’s voices coming from inside. It sounded like they were arguing. But the sound cut off abruptly when Isshin knocked on the door.

After a moment, the door slid partially open. “Well, if it isn’t the two Kurosaki-sans,” Urahara said, peering at them through the gap. “What can I do for you this evening?”

“Well, uh…” Isshin frowned. “I’m sure you’re aware of the situation.”

“Oh yes. This hollow’s powers are really quite extraordinary. His level of control is unparalleled in anything we’ve seen before. None of our efforts to break his connection have been-” 

“Urahara. The _whole_ situation.”

“...Ah.” Urahara’s eyes momentarily slid over to Ichigo before addressing Isshin once more. “Yes, I am aware.”

“And?”

“And what? I don’t know what you expect me to do, Kurosaki-san. We need to focus on-”

“Urahara, please. Just...talk to him, at least.”

Urahara sighed. “Alright. Alright, fine. Please, come in, Kurosaki-san.”

He slid the door the rest of the way open and Ichigo stepped forward awkwardly through it. Isshin remained outside.

“Sorry about that,” Urahara said, shutting the door quietly behind him. “I...I heard about Inoue-san. I’m sorry for your loss, Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo nodded jerkily. What was he supposed to say to that?

“Ishida-san dropped by and explained what happened. He also told us everything you learned about this hollow- Sabell, yes?- and how he used his powers to manipulate you. You do realize that you were manipulated into that situation, don’t you?”

“Yeah. We knew from the beginning, but we still went along with it.”

“From my understanding, he didn’t give you much of a choice. Did he?”

“That doesn’t change the fact that we played right into his hands. If we had just-”

“Kurosaki-san. There was nothing you could have done differently. I need you to understand that. What happened to Inoue-san wasn’t your f-”

“Stop _saying_ that!” Ichigo yelled, all of his anger and guilt suddenly bursting out of him at once. “I’m sick of people saying that. It _is_ my fault. Orihime is _dead_, and it’s my fault! That’s not something you can just ignore, and denying it isn’t just going to make it go away!”

For a moment, Urahara was silent, his face unreadable.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “Well, if you insist on taking responsibility for her death...perhaps you would be willing to take responsibility for saving her life?”

“I…..what?”

“If, hypothetically, there were a way, would y-”

“Stop, Urahara-san. Don’t play games with me here. Tell me.”

Urahara hesitated, biting his lip. “Well...there’s a project I worked on with Kurotsuchi-san a while back. But we never finished it. It was never even tested.”

“Boss,” Tessai said quietly, warningly, from the back of the room.

“I know, I know. But we kept it around in case of emergency. People are dying out there, wouldn’t you say that counts as an emergency?”

“Urahara-san, _tell_ me.”

“Alright, alright. This was Kurotsuchi’s pet project more so than mine, really. He was convinced that we could find a way to use kido techniques to blur the lines of reality, if you will. To pull energy from a different point on the timeline, and forge a connection, a pathway capable of transporting matter.”

“...Huh?”

“Time travel. Well, specifically, travel back to the past.”

Ichigo blinked, processing that. “So...so we could go back and save Inoue…!”

“Now, hold on. I told you, we never finished the project. What we hypothesized from the research that we _did_ conduct is that, theoretically, we could send one person back. Just one.”

“Alright then, _I’ll_ go back and save her.”

“Let me finish, please. As I said, it was never tested, so we don’t even know if it’ll work. Assuming it does, there’s another catch. You could only use it once. The spell would reject you if you tried to use it again. You understand what that means, right, Kurosaki-san? You only get one shot at this.”

“One second chance is all I need,” Ichigo said. “I don’t care about the risks, Urahara-san. Just, help me fix this. Help me save her. Please.”

Urahara sighed. “Tessai-san?”

“If you really think it’s necessary, Boss.”

“I don’t see what else we could do, at this point. This way please, Kurosaki-san.”

Ichigo followed Urahara and Tessai down to their underground training facility, waited while they took measurements, drew lines in the sand, muttered kido incantations under their breaths. All the while his heart hammered in his chest. He tried not to get his hopes up too high, but it was hard not too. All he wanted was the chance to get Orihime back.

“Alright,” Urahara said, some time later when all the preparations were finally complete. “It’s hard to pinpoint the exact time you’ll be sent back to, but we’re aiming for a week before the attack. That way hopefully you’ll be able to find Sabell before he builds up his forces, or at least come up with a different plan to stop him.”

“Thank you Urahara-san, Tessai-san. Let’s do this.”

“Step into the center of the diagram, please.”

Ichigo did as he was told. Urahara and Tessai stood at the edges of the pattern they’d drawn on the ground. He felt their spiritual pressures rising, and brought his own up to match. They started chanting, their hands making quick, complex patterns perfectly mirrored on either side of him.

At first nothing happened. Then, out of nowhere, a powerful wave of nausea swept over Ichigo. He gagged, hands flying up to cover his mouth, but in a moment it was gone, replaced by a tingling sensation, like full-body pins and needles. After that came dizziness, so intense that he felt as though his head were going to rip itself apart. Then pressure, an unbearable weight that sent him crashing to his knees, struggling to breathe. Then a flash of light, so bright that it seared his eyes in the split second before he squeezed them shut, accompanied by a loud rushing sound, like an ocean wave breaking against a rocky cliff.

And then, just as suddenly, it was all gone.

Ichigo gasped, desperately taking in air, and for a few moments he just stayed as he was, eyes shut, grounding himself in the aftermath of all those sensations.

When he finally did open his eyes, he found himself in his bedroom. It was very dark, but there was no mistaking a room so familiar to him.

Shakily he got to his feet. The clock on his desk read 6:26 AM. As fast as he could go without falling over, he made his way over to where his phone was charging and snatched it up, blinking blearily at the bright screen in the darkness.

The date was wrong. This wasn’t a week before Sabell’s attack. Urahara and Tessai had only managed to send him back three days. The attack was going to happen in just a few hours.

Ichigo put the phone down and raised a hand to his eyes, fighting off panic and a fresh wave of nausea that came with it. He couldn’t afford to panic- he only had one chance to fix what had happened, he didn’t have _time_ to panic.

After a few deep breaths, he turned his attention back to his phone. He dialed Orihime’s number with trembling fingers and prayed she’d pick up.

The line rang once, then twice. Then, in the middle of the third ring, it stopped. “...Hello…?” Orihime asked, clearly just having woken up.

It felt so, _so_ good to hear her voice again.

“Hello, ‘s anybody there?”

“A-ah...Inoue? It’s me. Are you ok?”

“I’m fine? Is everything ok, Kurosaki-kun?”

“Right,” Ichigo muttered, shaking his head to clear it. Nothing had happened yet. “Inoue, I’m sorry, but I need you to come over.”

“Like, right now?”

“Yes, right now. Sorry.”

“No, no, it’s ok.” She sounded more awake now, more alert. “Is this about Sabell?”

“Yeah. Ah, can you call Chad and Ishida and tell them to come, too? I need to contact Soul Society.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ll see you in a few minutes, then.”

She hung up, and Ichigo took another, even deeper breath. She was still alive. She was going to be ok.

He was going to make sure of it this time.

“Ridiculous,” Uryuu said flatly.

“It’s the truth!”

“What we do isn’t _magic_, Kurosaki. There’s no such thing as time travel. You’re just letting what that kid said earlier get to you. You need to go back to sleep.”

“Look, we really don’t have time to _argue_ about this, Ishida. We have less than 6 hours until the attack happens, and our backup from Soul Society is tied down in red tape trying to get here. I need you to trust me, ok, I’m not making this up! It wasn’t a dream, it was real, and unless we can think of a plan, the same thing that happened last time is going to happen all over again!”

“Kurosaki-kun, please, calm down,” Orihime said. “You’ll wake your family.”

Ichigo took a deep breath. “Right. You’re right. Sorry. Look, I just...this is serious, ok?”

“What exactly happened last time?” Chad asked, brushing his unruly bedhead bangs out of his eyes.

“Ishida called me and said ‘look at the news’, and there were riots happening in four different places, one for each of us, so we wouldn’t be able to work together. So we split up, and I fought Sabell, and, uh…” 

Ichigo hesitated, wondering how much to say.

“And?”

“And I lost. He got away. The riots got worse. People were dying, ok, and we lost our best chance at defeating Sabell. So I had to come back.”

“How’d you lose? This guy doesn’t seem that tough to me. This time I’ll fight him, and you-”

“Ishida, _please_, just. Shut up. I can beat him, I know how he fights now. That’s not the issue though, the issue is the thralls.”

“Did you ever figure out a way to break Sleighbell’s connection to them?”

“Sabell, Inoue, and no. But if I kill him, they’ll go back to normal.”

“Well, how did you fight them before? I mean, in the future? Uh… I mean-”

“I know what you mean. The best thing to do is just to incapacitate or trap them somehow. They’re just normal humans. If you can, get a bunch of ‘em in one room and barricade them in together. They should be stuck there for a while. If you have to knock them out, just try and be as gentle as you can.”

Slowly, the sun rose over the horizon and began to fill the room with light. Uryuu, Chad, and Orihime continued to question Ichigo about his experiences in his past, and he answered as best he could. Some time later Yuzu came around wondering what was going on- he kept the door locked and told her to go away and, after some additional coaxing from Karin, she did. About an hour after that, they called Soul Society again and received assurance that help was indeed on the way. Not long after that, Uryuu stormed out of the room, insisting that he wasn’t going to fight on an empty stomach.

Chad also headed down to the kitchen, but Ichigo grabbed Orihime’s arm before she could follow.

“Inoue,” he said carefully, “I think you should come with me to the civic center later.”

“Huh? But what about the park?”

“Let the soul reapers handle the park.”

“Kurosaki-kun. This is my town too. I can’t always be following you around, I want to do my part to protect it.”

“This isn’t a fight you can win alone,” Ichigo insisted. “I’d really feel better if you’d stay close to me.”

Orihime frowned, and he fidgeted uncomfortably under her gaze.

“Kurosaki-kun,” she said after a moment, “is there something you’re not telling me?”

“No.”

“Kurosaki-kun, please. I’m not one of your eleven year old sisters. We’re in this together. Or didn’t you mean what you said last night, about me being your friend and comrade?”

Ichigo winced. “I meant it. I meant it.”

“Then tell me.”

“Inoue, I...I didn’t come back just because we lost the fight. I came back because we lost you.”

Her eyes widened, and for a moment she was silent. Then her face softened and she reached out to pull him into a hug.

He didn’t resist. He couldn’t deny that it was exactly what he needed. He stood there and let his head drop down onto Orihime’s shoulder, let her hold him.

“I’m going to fight,” she said quietly.

“What? But…!”

“Kurosaki-kun, you can’t change my mind about this. I’m going to fight.”

“Inoue,” he said, pulling back and putting his hands on her shoulders, “please. Don’t do this. Don’t make me go through losing you again. _Please_.”

“I’m not going to die,” she said, placing one of her hands gently on top of his. “Things will be different this time.”

“But….”

“You’re the strongest person I know,” she said simply, smiling. He didn’t get how anyone could ever possibly smile so radiantly and confidently under any circumstances, let alone these. “If anyone’s going to defeat Sabell, it’s you. I’d bet my life on you any day, Kurosaki-kun.”

Ichigo took a shaky breath, fighting off tears. “I already failed once,” he said. “If I fuck up again, I won’t get another chance, Inoue. And I just...I just want you to be safe.”

“Better take him out quick, then.”

“I’m being serious, Inoue.”

“So am I. I’m not afraid, Kurosaki-kun. I trust you. Now let’s go down and get some food in you, alright? We don’t have much time before our friends from Soul Society show up.”

Time dragged on. Their backup- a dozen young recruits from the Tenth Squad that Ichigo had never met before- thankfully arrived in plenty of time. But still they stayed put. Uryuu pointed out, and rightly so, that if they jumped the gun and showed up too soon, Sabell would likely scrap his plan and they’d lose their advantage.

Ichigo found the waiting absolutely agonizing. He was pent up with nerves and anxiety, and he just wanted to get it over with.

And then, quite suddenly, it was finally time, and he didn’t feel at all ready. One last word of encouragement from Chad, one last quip from Uryuu about actually winning the fight this time. One last look over his shoulder at Orihime, wondering if he’d ever see her again. Then he was running again, leading his trio of soul reapers through the streets, retracing his steps to where Sabell was waiting for him.

Everything was just as he remembered it as he landed on the street. The noise, the sounds. The way the rioters all stopped and stared at him on cue.

“I’m here,” he yelled, playing along. “Let these people go. Get out here and fight me!”

Just as before, the crowd parted and Sabell strutted his way towards them with his head held high.

“You guys hang back,” Ichigo muttered to the soul reapers behind him, ignoring his little speech and display of power. “Take care of the thralls. Remember, don’t-”

“Don’t hurt them, just stop them from moving. We’ve got it, Kurosaki-san. You just get out there and kick that guy’s ass.”

The thralls charged forward, but this time Ichigo did not rush out to meet them. He jumped, soared over their heads, bounced from rooftop to rooftop, and dived straight at Sabell.

The hollow met Zangetsu’s blade with his own, but it was clear that Ichigo had caught him off guard. “Clever little boy,” he hissed, his arms shaking with the effort of keeping Ichigo at bay. “But surely you didn’t think it would be that simple? You and I are _leagues_ apart. I have lived dozens of your lifetimes, seen more things than you could possibly imagine. Compared to me, your power is insignificant at most! I am-”

“Dude,” Ichigo snapped, breaking contact and drawing his blade back, “you talk _way_ too much. Getsuga tenshou!”

The blast hit Sabell point blank and threw him back like a ragdoll, away from the thralls running to come to his rescue.

In a flash Ichigo was on top of him, blade at his throat. He almost opened his mouth to give him one last chance to surrender, to release the thralls and go. But the thought of Orihime’s broken body in his arms shut him up.

There was no room for mercy here. Not when her life was on the line.

The moment their connection to Sabell was severed, the thralls dropped like marionettes with their strings cut. But within moments, they began to stir, to show signs of life again.

Ichigo didn’t stick around to see that, though. He ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the park, leaping the fence and dashing through the trees.

“Inoue,” he shouted, bursting out into the open, desperately scanning the area for any sign of her. “Inoue? Are you there?”

“I’m here, Kurosaki-kun!” she shouted back, and he found her, doubled over with an unconscious thrall’s arm around her shoulders.

He started towards her. She carefully bent down to lay the woman she’d been carrying on the grass before opening her arms to him. He caught her up in a hug so powerful that it nearly knocked them both over, and she laughed.

“Thank god you’re ok,” Ichigo murmured, holding her tightly.

“I knew you could do it,” she said, rubbing a hand reassuringly over his back.

“Mmmmm?” said the woman on the ground.

Orihime laughed again. It felt really, really good to hear her laugh. “Come on, Kurosaki-kun, our job’s not done yet. Let’s get these people home safe before we call it a day.”

Later- much, much later- he stopped by Urahara’s shop.

“Well, if it isn’t Kurosaki-san,” Urahara said as he strolled through the open door. “Very nice work with the latest hollow in town, I must say. That had the potential to go very wrong, but you handled it quite well.”

“Ironic that you should say that.”

“Hm? Why is that?”

“Because it _did_ go very wrong, and I came here to thank you for helping me fix it.”

“I’m sorry, Kurosaki-san, but I don’t follow you.”

“You used your time travel spell to send me back,” Ichigo explained. “The one you and Kurotsuchi came up with.”

Urahara blinked, his perfect smile momentarily slipping. “D-don’t...don’t be ridiculous, Kurosaki-san! Everyone knows there’s no such thing as t-”

“Oh yeah? Then I wonder who it was that told me about it.” He chuckled, watching Urahara struggle with that one, wondering how much to say. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone else. Well, besides Inoue, Chad, and Ishida. I think they can keep the secret though.”

“I would very much appreciate that.”

“You might need to work on your calculations a bit, though. You tried to send me back ten days and only managed three.”

“Well, thank goodness that that appears to have been enough time.”

“Yeah, barely. Still though, thank you, Urahara-san. If it weren’t for you…well, let’s just say, some really terrible stuff happened. But everything’s ok now. Everyone’s ok. And I won’t make the same mistakes again, I promise. We’re going to be ok.”

“How did he take it?” Orihime asked.

“About as well as you’d expect him to,” Ichigo said, sitting down next to her on the bench just down the block from Urahara’s shop where she’d been waiting for him. “He actually tried to deny the whole thing. You should have seen his face.”

“I wonder how long he’s been keeping that to himself. I don’t think I could do it. Do you?”

“I mean, the very second I found out about it, I was practically begging him to use it, so. No.”

“Hah! Well, if it means anything to you, I’m very grateful that you did.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

She beamed at him, and he smiled back.

“So,” Orihime said, “where to now? The town is safe, the sun is shining, the afternoon is young. Where should we go, hm?”

“I don’t care where we go. I just want to spend time with you.”

“You’re sweet, Kurosaki-kun. What do you say to, oh, I don’t know, just a walk around town? The park is probably out, I realize.”

“Sounds good. Do you maybe want to stop along the way somewhere for food? I could eat.”

“Yes, that sounds great! Wanna try that new Italian place just opened up?”

“I thought that place got trashed in Chad’s fight with the thralls.”

“Oh, you’re right. Well, then. Ramen?”

“Ramen,” he agreed, standing up and offering her his hand.

She took it, and the two of them walked away down the street, chatting idly.

All was well in Karakura once again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm very glad to have had the chance to write this, and in the end I'm pretty pleased with how it came out! I think I've learned some things along the way with this one, haha. That's always a good thing.
> 
> My sincerest thanks to all of you for reading it- keep that Bleach spirit burning, always <3


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